


From Here to Eternity

by SathInflection



Category: Machineries of Empire Series - Yoon Ha Lee
Genre: Crack Treated Seriously, Ghosts, Guro, M/M, Necrophilia, ToT: Monster Mash, Trick or Treat: Chocolate Box, Trick or Treat: Extra Trick, Undead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-22 20:56:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12490656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SathInflection/pseuds/SathInflection
Summary: Violence is no way to get ahead, but it did get Kujen a head.





	From Here to Eternity

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Eehn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eehn/gifts).



“What happened to it?” asked Jedao.

Kujen shuffled the jeng-zai deck for another game. “To what?”

“My body, Nirai-zho.” His nine eyes seemed to blink.

“Shouldn’t you be more concerned with your mind?” Jedao hadn’t cared about his body when he was alive; why would he feel different now? Kujen checked the equipment, verifying that none of Jedao’s signifiers had changed. “You know I’ve already modified it, and that I’ll do it again.”

“Is my body inside the black cradle with me?”

Yes. It had been necessary for the first few weeks, as Jedao was drained from his dismembered body into the cradle. “You’ve been dead for several years. You don’t want to see it.” Kujen wasn’t sure why he hadn’t removed it, though it was perfectly preserved. He hadn’t wanted to deal with any smell.

“Please—tell me what it looks like.”

“Can’t you feel it with you?” Kujen asked.

“I have no ability to feel, Nirai-zho.”

Kujen had yet to settle on exactly how annoying it was for Jedao to plead. Jedao was still a complicated problem, but laboratory conditions could only be so interesting. Annoyed, Kujen went to the wall panel covering Jedao’s remains, where he’d been rendered into the black cradle. Out of the black cradle’s limited sightline, Kujen entered the code and the paneling slid back.

He’d beheaded Jedao so he could more easily get to the spinal cord, where far more consciousness resided than the Vidona ever gave it credit for. The head stared up at him, brown eyes still open. After spending so long with Jedao as a revenant, it was odd to see him with only two eyes. His arms and legs were stacked around his naked torso, which had a long incision running from hyoid to groin that had been stapled shut after Kujen removed the rest of the spine. Jedao was naked, preserved so well that he looked like a recent murder victim. His skin was pliant, and Kujen could move his fingers into the pose of holding one of the guns Jedao had been so fond of. Like the one he'd shot Kujen with at their first meeting. Kujen picked the head up by its hair, finding it surprisingly soft as he walked back into Jedao’s field of view.   

“Here,” Kujen said, turning the head towards Jedao, keeping his hand under the chin so Jedao wouldn’t have to watch himself gape. “Can you see it?”

Jedao’s nine golden eyes went dark. “Yes.”

Kujen looked down at the head, remembering how animated Jedao had been. Everything that made Jedao himself was in the black cradle (except that Jedao was no longer himself, and never would be again), and Kujen was only holding vacuum-sealed meat. “I know we had to keep up the lies, but it’s strange to think of how we were never lovers.”

“I didn’t think I was your type,” Jedao replied, his eyes reappearing. “I remember how pretty your anchors are.”

“You’re not right for a host. But for a night or two, I could have settled.” Kujen dragged his fingers over Jedao’s lips. “Your mouth charms me.” Eternity was so much more appealing with Jedao in it, to work Kujen’s will in the world and be worked in turn. “Let me kiss your mouth, Jedao.”

Ninefox Crowned with Eyes shimmered for a moment on the instruments. “If it serves you,” Jedao said at last.

His anchor registered distress as Kujen bent to kiss Jedao’s severed head, but he’d made Mahar go through worse things. Jedao’s skin was a little cold, and Kujen wished it were warm, so he could have what he had told himself he was too busy to enjoy. And Jedao had not been entirely as compelling before Hellspin, and the feigned madness that hadn’t been feigned at all. Kujen did not want him then as he did now, too late.

“How do I taste?” asked Jedao.

“Dead. I should destroy it. You’ll never have a body again.”

“Neither will you, Nirai-zho,” Jedao replied. “He was so unhappy.”

“You’re still unhappy. This head, on the other hand, feels nothing at all, not even me.”

“You said you’d fix me eventually.”

“I did say that,” said Kujen. “I’m going to burn this.”

As Kujen turned to leave, carrying the head under his arm, Jedao called out, “Will we play jeng-zai when you get back?”

Kujen flicked off the switch, returning Jedao to darkness. 

**Author's Note:**

> This was partially inspired by Oscar Wilde's "Salomé." Also yeah the title is the name of that 40s movie with the beach scene where the actors are making out in the surf.
> 
> Thank you Havisham for the beta!


End file.
